Please Leave Column The Way You Found It

Bus route bard. Wendell Alderson of Satellite Beach is a man of many talents: school bus driver, singer, poet, songwriter.

After 12 years as a bus driver for Satellite High, he's hanging up his steering wheel this semester.

By midsummer, his book of poetry, titled What Makes Wendell Tick? will roll off the presses. He's publishing it himself as the Indian River Press.

But it's going to be more than just a book of poetry. Included in the package will be a cassette tape of Wendell singing four songs.

''I used to do concerts,'' he said. ''Performed my own music and read poems by Kipling, Stephen Vincent Benet, Shakespeare and others.''

He says the book will ''cover a wide range of thought from philosophy to people and humor'' in such poetic

forms as sonnets, free verse, haiku, limericks.

Here's a free verse sample: ''What Is a School Bus Driver?'' which delighted the crowd last week at a meeting of the Brevard County School Board: A school bus driver/is a being/an entity/a particular kind/of a living/ breathing organism/that defies/all efforts/to name or categorize/or describe in a phrase/or expression/by the most cunning/of word manipulators.

It is a phenomenon/awesome and mysterious/not easily equaled/or approached/by any other earthling/a first-hand creation/of divine intelligence/for what other power source/what other energy force/ could mold it/from the clay of love/and make it perform/in such a singular fashion.

But failing to identify/this strangely Christlike//strangely human creature/if we watch how it moves/it will tell us many things.

A school bus driver is/a teacher by precept/a psychologist by exposure/a skillful driver by experience/a paramedic by accident/a policeman by reputation/a martyr in its own opinion/a referee on occasion/a lover of children by addiction/a bookkeeper by compulsion/a comedian by necessity/a diplomat-negotiator by practice/a minister in ideals/a Job by patience/a Solomon by wisdom.

And a living paradox that says in June/ ''Never again - I have had it''/but in August just can't wait/to get back behind the wheel/with 66 heinous monsters/ screeching in its ears/this is a school bus driver.

So, parents, looks like your kids have been in good hands with Alderson.

Brevardendum. Riding south on U.S. Highway 1, now being readied for resurfacing from Rockledge to Pineda, is like a trip on a concrete washboard. Feels like one of those old ''Magic Fingers'' vibrating motel beds with a quarter slot that gave you an all-over massage. . . . Slim turnout for the bed race Saturday in Cocoa Village. Looked like more trophies than spectators for the pre-race parade. Guess folks were more interested in the display of police equipment and the Rockledge High jazz band, which drew a nice crowd for that city's centennial committee Super Saturday II at Rockledge Square.

Good news for Brevard folks who stopped having birthdays at 39: Old Jack Benny radio shows are back on WCKS-AM (86) weeknights at 7 p.m. . . . Young boy on center island of U.S. 1 in Melbourne was trying valiantly Saturday to lure motorists to a benefit carwash. Hadn't learned yet that you need a young lady in a bikini to do the job right. . . . Brevard sheriff's Commander Speedy DeWitt, who died early Saturday of a heart attack, leaves a host of friends who respected him for his professional competence as well as his wit. . . . Bumper sticker in Cocoa: ''Ugly strikes one out of three.'' Another on Hibiscus Avenue, Melbourne: ''God bless America -- and please hurry.''